Bono

There’s no law against flannelette pajamas as far as I know. This particular pair was dark green plaid, however, and identical to the ones Dad wore through his later years.

Not only that, they were out of season. We were sweltering through a particularly hot summer. Winter weight nightwear was the last thing he needed.

“What do you think?” Philip said, swaggering into the bedroom with the nonchalance of a seasoned fashion model.

I adjusted my head on the pillow so I could finish the crossword without the assistance of a neck brace.

How could I tell my beloved husband that, without realizing it, he was mutating into my father?

It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out what had happened. Philip had been wandering through a department store during one of his lunch breaks when some shop assistant sniffed him out as easy prey.

Blonde, 25, and with teeth that would have bankrupted her parents, she’d have beckoned him over to stroke the fabric. Helpless as a terrier in front of a plate of fillet steak, he would have trotted through the underwear displays to her counter. She would have beamed up at him and stroked last winter’s flannelette with her manicured talons. He would have been mesmerized as she pointed out the white piping edging on the collar and flattered him into believing it was retro. Honestly, straight men should be banned from shopping alone.

My husband of twenty-two years is an exceptionally kind and tactful man. He has never once grumbled about the oversized T-shirts I wear to bed (100 percent cotton, the only type that breathes properly) or the accompanying beige granny pants (giant knickers finishing at the waistline are the world’s best kept secret).

A sensible woman would have rolled onto her side and completed the crossword (“10 Down: Cooking fat (4)”). But common sense has never been my forte. I had to open my mouth and say the new pajamas weren’t very exciting. In no way was I making fun of him. I was just talking the way people do once we’ve nudged past 50. The instant the words rolled off my tongue I regretted them. He had every right to retaliate with observations about the extra twenty pounds I’d piled on while writing the last book, or point out that my idea of clothes storage is to toss them on the floor.

But he just smiled in that understated way that has always intrigued me. “Be careful what you wish for,” he said, lifting his side of the quilt and climbing in beside me. “Excitement has a price.”

The words hit me with the force of a cast iron wok landing on my head. Grateful as I was for our marriage, the wonders of modern medicine, our grown-up kids, and two beautiful granddaughters, in recent months I’d fallen into a confusing state of restlessness. Our life together had begun to feel a little, well, ho-hum. Excitement may come at a price, but I was almost ready to pay it.

My life hadn’t always seemed so dull. Nothing could surpass the ecstasy of gazing into the faces of my four children for the first time. On countless occasions, a burst of bliss had popped out unexpectedly from the dampness of a kitten’s nose, or the cool caress of grass under my feet. But the life I’d once led as a journalist, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney, seemed a million moons ago. In those days, I could pick up a phone to hear some PR person begging me to do a one-on-one interview with Pavarotti or to take a trip to Alaska or Tahiti for the price of a few lines of travel writing.

These days, I was resorting to frankly desperate measures for a bit of excitement, and it wasn’t working—for me or anyone else. The purple streak I’d persuaded the world’s longest suffering stylist, Brendan, to apply to my fringe had been a disaster. Though Philip and the family were too tactful to say anything, I was starting to realize the new red fishnet stockings were a joke. Every day was a duller replica of the last. On my morning walk to the shopping center, a once opalescent sky bore down like a steely battle helmet. The magpies that used to land at my feet had, with the careless freedom only birds can muster, fluttered off to some other neighborhood. Even the birds were bored with me.

A visit to the doctor was an option, but I knew she’d reach for her prescription pad and tell me to exercise more. I had no intention of joining the army of medicated women with their fake smiles and dilated pupils concealing their shattered emotional states.

If I’d been in a novel, I might have taken off to France to embark on an affair with a lavender farmer. But even if I could do that to Philip, what self-respecting lavender farmer would have me? He’d laugh at my schoolgirl French and hate me for scattering croissant crumbs over his bespoke stone floor.